Daily Reformer: Miller's "fixation" is us

Good morning, Reformers. 

Max Nesterak is at oral arguments today in the Cities Church case, where defendants Georgia Fort, Don Lemon and others have moved to dismiss. We’ll have a story this evening. 

A younger Stephen Miller, named White House chief of staff Friday, served as former 6th District U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann’s press secretary and has a special “fixation” with Minnesota and our Somali population, the Washington Sun reported Friday. 

It’s worth quoting in full: 

“The president’s fierce loyalist pressed administration officials for evidence of fraud related to immigrants, Minnesota and the state’s Somali population nine times in a span of about 10 minutes during a December 2025 call…. Miller cut one official off as they were describing a fraud problem in Florida, a hot spot for bad actors who siphon off government benefits, according to the government’s own data. He appeared uninterested in the official’s description of fraud when it didn’t prominently feature immigrants.”

More: “Miller has repeatedly sought to wield the full weight of the federal government against the roughly 100,000 Somalis who live in Minnesota, targeting the state’s federal funds, installing an ally of his immigration agenda in a key position at the Justice Department and clashing with career and political officials in the process.”

The piece closes out with this: “‘Let me be clear: This is still the beginning of our work in Minnesota,’ said Colin McDonald, Miller’s point person in the DOJ.”

Remember that Miller said Alex Pretti was a “terrorist” before backtracking and dumping the whole thing on then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, whom he knew was on her way out. Noem’s circle then leaked this to Axios: 

“‘Everything I've done, I've done at the direction of the president and Stephen (Miller),’ Noem told a person who relayed her remarks to Axios.”

Miller, whose own childhood rabbi condemned him during the first Trump term for “negativity, violence, malice and brutality,” has a fuller remit now to include the Iran War, so maybe he won’t have time to continue his Minnesota “fixation.” 

At least now Democrats have some leverage: Back off, or else. And perhaps Gov.-elect Amy Klobuchar can work some backchannels to get a détente, but take a deep breath and take this in: The federal government’s war on Minnesota is likely to continue. Tuesday was a key moment, but the end doesn’t actually come until Jan. 2029, at best. 

To the Reformer:

Not really the point, but Black Democrats’ victories in the South keep evoking great newspaper ledes. Here’s The New York Times (gift link) as Scott Colom of Mississippi edges closer to a U.S. Senate seat: 

“On Tuesday morning, Angela Lewis got off her overnight shift as a psychiatric nurse, drove to her polling place in Meridian, Miss., and then sat in the parking lot and prayed.

That morning, she asked that God’s will be done; the day before, she said a prayer of thanks to her father, James Chaney, one of the three civil rights organizers murdered by Mississippi Klansmen in June 1964, days after she was born. It is because of people like her father that she could vote at all.

The man she had come to vote for on Tuesday was Scott Colom, who now appears to be edging toward becoming the first Black senator from Mississippi since Reconstruction.”

Stevie Wonder kicks off a short “Songs in the Key of Life” tour soon, but the nearest city he’s playing is Detroit. The album is 50 years old this year, and its influence still resonates. Check out all the times its songs have been sampled. Here’s “Pastime Paradise.” 

Have a great day all! JPC